But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope.
Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question.
"It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?"
Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously.
"I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it?
So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came."
"You cross?"
She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt.
"A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject.
"I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy."